New files reveal Tony Blair ignored warnings over infamous WI speech
Newly released government files have revealed that Tony Blair ignored advice to avoid “capital P policies” before his infamous speech to the Women’s Institute.
The speech, delivered to an audience of 10,000 at Wembley Arena, quickly turned into a fiasco, with the prime minister heckled by WI members and applauded slowly.
They were angry that he used his conferences as a platform for what they saw as “party political broadcasting”.
This public outcry was seen as evidence that New Labor had lost touch with the Middle England voters it had successfully courted during the 1997 general election landslide.
Documents lodged at the National Archives at Kew, west London, confirm that officials warned the prime minister to steer clear of party politics, but key advisers argued the speech should be more political.
A week before his speech in June 2000, Julian Braithwaite of the No 10 press office went to meet WI leaders to find out what they expected.
“They want you to set out your vision of future societies – in their words, what kind of Britain do you want your children to grow up in?” he wrote in a note to Mr Blair. he wrote.
“They were wary of anything that resembled the P policy of capital and were clearly sensitive to patronage.”
But after Mr Blair, returning from paternity leave following the birth of his fourth child Leo, circulated the first draft to his political team, they stood firm and insisted it needed more political content, not less.
“I disagree with the idea that this should be a discursive and awkward conversation,” special counsel Peter Hyman wrote.
“It probably might be appropriate for the audience, but I don’t think it satisfies the political moment we need to capture.”
David Miliband, then a special adviser, suggested he should start laying the groundwork for the next general election.
“I think you want this speech to define the policy field on our terms. This is not the first speech of the election campaign and should not be a policy brief, but it should set out our thesis,” he wrote.
Anji Hunter, another key member of Mr Blair’s inner circle, agreed it should have been “more policy-rich”, while Sally Morgan said it was “too defensive, apologetic, insecure” and appeared “more of a moral commentator than a political leader”.
Mr Blair’s enthusiastic press secretary, Alastair Campbell, was even more dismissive, suggesting it sounded like something his predecessor John Major might have offered.
“It makes little sense for Blair to re-ignite and re-focus on all fronts, and there is no danger of it becoming Majoresque in some places,” he wrote.
“Where is the challenge to the audience? Where is the challenge to the country? Where is the sense of the modernizing leader who speaks to the need for real change and reform and other difficult choices that must be made? Too complacent, too comfortable.”
He added: “I’m sorry to be so negative but I fear the conversation in its current form will not work and, far from bringing you back in touch, will have the opposite effect.”
As the speech went through various drafts and amendments, Mr Braithwaite warned that it had become “probably twice as long” as the WI had expected.
In the event, Mr Blair never got to the end and the reaction in the room forced him to cut the speech short.
Looking back years later for a BBC documentary, he recalled with regret: “I gave them lessons, they gave me raspberries.”
